I’m calmer today, thank you.

As you will recall, I was a little freaked by how quickly I had gotten to the recapitulation of this movement. Tonight I went back to the score paper and sketched out a couple of strophes that might reasonably be inserted here and there in what I already have. But none of it seemed to fit.

I also listened to my favorite waltz, the “Delirien” waltz by Josef Strauss, Johann’s younger and to my mind more melodic brother. I wanted to hear more of how he structured it. I mean, it’s all pretty formulaic, and I might as well use the formula. I don’t yet have a flutes-with-pizzicato strophe, and I don’t really have a Big Grand strophe, which ought to come second or third in the lineup. I’ve got the cute little twittery one (it’s about third), and a couple of the smooth, legato ones.

(At the moment, you can’t really tell how some of my bits are going to fulfill your expectations of a concert waltz, because so far all you’ve heard is the sketches in the strings. Some of those are going involve brass leads, cello variations, etc.)

I listened particularly to the end, where Josef has the return of the first strophe, followed by the return of the second, followed by the coda. I think I’m going to vary that. Instead of following the recapitulation with the second strophe, I’m going to toss in a new one, followed by the Big Grand Finale.

The new secondary strophe is in place, and before I share it I want to tweak it a lot, because I want to do a lot of interesting stuff to its repeat before heading into the BGF. But I’ve made progress, and I might actually be finished with III. Allegro gracioso by this time next week.

Just in time to use my spring break to plunge back into IV. Lento; allegro. That’s okay. I’ve been having ideas.